This archive report was first published on 3 December 2019.
Parents of KCPE 2019 candidates have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Form One selection process, citing frustration with the outcome.
On Monday, Education CS George Magoha announced that 1,075,201 candidates out of 1,083,456 who sat the exam had been selected to join secondary schools. However, many parents found out that their children had been selected to join schools they had not chosen, or schools that did not reflect their children's performances.
Simon Mogambi, a parent, shared his son's experience, saying, 'You tell your child to work hard because if they work hard they get a good school. My son worked hard but where he has been selected to join is not where he worked hard so as to get a better school.'
According to the Education CS, thousands of candidates will miss slots in their most preferred schools due to the huge scramble for positions at top national schools. The selection panel faced a hard time placing students in some schools with high demand.
It was revealed that 30,000 candidates were placed in schools they had not chosen, due to unavailability of vacancies in home counties. Other top KCPE performers could not be placed in schools of their choice, as majority of the candidates selected top schools that have no capacity to admit all of them.
For instance, Pangani Girls National had 111,817 applications, yet it has a capacity of only 336 students. Alliance High school, with a capacity of 384 students, had 83,489 applications, while Kenya High had 49,727 applicants, yet it has a capacity of only 336 students.
Another challenge noted during the selection was inadequate capacities of places in secondary schools in some counties. For example, Nairobi county had only 23,613 slots for 62,973 candidates, creating a shortfall of 39,360. Mombasa County had 5,126 allocated slots for 18,989 candidates, creating a shortfall of 13,863.
The students are required to report to Form One between January 13 to 17 next year.
